Just picked up a T-Mek. It's in sorry shape structurally. Apparently it was on location at a truck stop that caught on fire. The cab was underneath a fire sprinkler so the particle board soaked up water and is now basically turning to powder. All the hardware is in great shape though, no rust. I'm going to be taking the whole thing apart and using the existing panels to pattern new ones. Going to heat gun the artwork off and re-use it on the new panels.

I paid $100 for the whole thing. So far I know the monitors at least power on. I'm getting neck glow. I am getting NO power through the power supply, I've got that up on the bench right now. I'll post more as I go.

Yep, power supply was blown. It wasn't the transistor. When I unsoldered it and re-tested, it was good. Yet all three pads on the board were toning out, which is WRONG. So I wired up another power supply to the cabinet and it fired up. The right monitor has a solid, clear picture but it "blinks" is the only way I can describe it. The left monitor is weird. The image has a compressed, upside-down double image on the bottom of the screen. I plugged in the seat half and the sticks are working but it's not registering the triggers/buttons. The sound is all good, even the sub in the seats.

Soooo... The electronics are there and good. That's awesome. Now I just need my roommate to get the two couches and table out of my garage so I can start working on the wood rebuild.

Any ideas on the right monitor blink or the left monitor double image?

Looks like 100 bucks well spent. That game looks salvageable. I would love to help, but my knowledge in that area is sparse.

Totally. Even if I were to just gut it and resell the parts I'd WAY make more than my money back. My only concern is the artwork. The art on this game is fantastic, but I can't find any place to get replacement. That's why I'm going to try to heat gun it off in single pieces and re-use it. Wish me luck!

So, now that I know the hardware is solid, I started in on the cabinetry. The cabinet is in three main pieces. The seat unit, the monitor housing, and the marquee cap. The Marquee cap, while having a LOT of angled rips and cuts, is the simplest and smallest of the parts, so I started there. I dismantled it slowly and took a ton of pics in order to help in putting it back together. The marquee itself is a large wrap-around thing with two heat bends that has a translite style art piece behind it. That is in great shape and, thankfully, will not need to be replaced. The rest of the marquee cap is ---steaming pile of meadow muffin--- and will need a rebuild.

As far as the art goes, my plan was to heat gun the heavy vinyl off the panels. That turns out to not be a thing. The vinyl heated through and wanted to stretch long before the adhesive softened up. I found a different way though - 91% isopropyl alcohol. It acts as a solvent to the adhesive without damaging the vinyl or the art. By soaking the edges of the particle board with it I was able to start peeling up the heavy vinyl and, once there was enough to grab, I was able to begin rocking the art piece side to side and eventually remove it. This does result in a lot of particle board residue still attached to the backside of the art though. This is fixed by liberally soaking the back of the art with alcohol and scraping with a plastic spatula. This is resulting in smooth, clean art that I can reglue to the new panels.

I'll be using the old, swollen, and separating particle board panels as templates to cut new plywood panels and then gluing the art to the new wood. This should result in a lighter and stronger assembly than original.

Decided to reproduce the panels with like materials. So particle board original gets particle board replacement. The main reason being the slight variation in thickness between particle and ply. If I match materials... no math. and I'm lazy. Starting cutting panels today. Nothing to show as far as pics right now though.